A quick look at Windows Live security

Ars takes a quick look at the services Microsoft provides to keep Windows Live …

Microsoft has the right and responsibility to protect its Windows Live users from any inappropriate communications, malicious activity, and/or content that violates the Terms of Use. Of course, the company mainly reacts to users' reports when they see suspicious activity. For reference, you can report abuse for the following products' services at these links: Messenger, Hotmail, Spaces, SkyDrive, Calendar, Events, Groups, People, and Profile. If you can't get to these links for whatever reason, generally speaking, you can report inappropriate imagery, harassment, nudity, spam/SPIM, or a virus at support.live.com.

Windows Live already protects its users in various ways, most of which is based on monitoring the Windows Live servers for malicious programs and reacting appropriately (the average user does not see these actions, which Microsoft considers a good thing):

Blocking instant messaging spam and inappropriate communications in Windows Live Messenger and providing a means to report abuse.

Filtering incoming e-mail messages in Windows Live Hotmail for spam/junk, and scanning attachments received, downloaded, and sent in Hotmail.

Furthermore, Windows Live Dev had a very good post last week on how developers can use the Windows Live Contact API to keep their users safe. This includes a recent realization by Microsoft that user experience was declining when users clicked "sign in" and were taken to the Live ID authentication page. While the security advantage of inputting credentials on a Microsoft domain was definitely there, many users were confused because they thought they had navigated to the wrong site. Microsoft's solution is to allow web developers to change the look of sign-in and sign-up pages for Windows Live ID, to an extent. You can see screenshots of this at the Windows Live Dev post (regions which can be themed are blue, and the areas which can be changed altogether are yellow).